Unless you've been living in a cave for the past year, you know EA has a lot vested in Battlefield 3. EA has been very vocal in regards to the what they want to do with the franchise: sock it to Call of Duty. So now that Battlefield 3 is out, how does it stand up? Did DICE deliver some bite to that EA brass bark? The answer, as you might expect, is complicated.

The campaign is underwhelming to put it bluntly. The writing is weak and canned as the story plays out through a series of flashbacks. It's your standard mordern combat FPS affair with linear levels dressed up in large environments. Each story mission has specific objectives that have to be completed in order to advance. There are mobs of terrorists to take down between checkpoints and you work with your squad to complete them. These objectives range from infiltrating buildings to capture intel/targets to fighting your way across a warzone to rendezvous with other forces for extraction. While the campaign is not as dreadful as that description may sound, there are some key moments that stuck out to me as big disappointments. The most obvious being the mission with Lt. Hawkins. I thought the mission was giving me my first glimpse of gameplay with the newly added fighter jets. Much to my dismay Hawkins is an RIO (Radio Intercept Officer), the backseat passenger that is in charge of weapons and targeting. Rather than getting a chance at flying a F-18, I'm left playing a dressed up rail shooter.

As uninspiring as the single player experience is, I think the evident lack of polish is the most disappointing. Several times throughout the campaign I experienced glitches of jerky enemy movements, including but not limited to enemies running through walls and choppy character animations leading to enemies almost teleporting from one location to another. The AI isn't the smartest and while the game on hard is challenging I think there is room for improvement in checkpoint placement. Aside from that, the game looks great. Granted it doesn't hold up to the PC version, but the game on PS3 is still visually impressive with nice, sharp textures and large scale destructable environments.

The size and scope of the single player and multiplayer levels is impressive. Multiplayer is where Battlefield 3 shines. The classes, with unlockable items and gear, add a great amount of depth to the multiplayer portion of Battlefield 3. Each class has it's own unique loadout options with upgradeable weapons and gadgets. Engineers can unlock shoulder launched Stinger missiles or deploy an Explosive Ordinance Disposal robot that can support troops remotely. Snipers or Recon specialists can deploy remote spawn points to provide support to strategic points on the map or deploy a UAV to provide intel on enemy troop locations. On top of that, vehicles also have unlockable gadgets: Infra-red countermeasures, thermal imaging to improve target acquisition, guided munitions, etc. Battlefield 3's vehicle/infrantry multiplayer creates a dynamic environment allowing completely different strategies and tactics to be employed. In the right hands, vehicles can devastate opponents but DICE has provided enough balance to prevent them from becoming overpowering. Infantry units still hold all the tools necessary to take them down.

In addition, DICE has packed in a "Hardcore mode" that does away with much of the HUD, including ammo status and on-screen aiming reticle (encouraging the use of iron sights and improving the value of those optional laser sights) as well as an infantry only mode that removes the vehicles completely. The standard fare of team and squad based deathmatch is present along with the Battlefield staple of objective-based games like Conquest and Rush. If you're not at all into competitive multiplayer, Battlefield 3 also sports two player online co-op with unique missions. Experience gained here will also unlock specific multiplayer weapons which will help insure you aren't wandering into the competitive warzone with standard gear. The missions are challenging and provide a good variety of objectives and settings. Co-op starts with two missions available that have to be completed in order to gain access to the locked missions.

Regardless of my quibbles and noted faults I have really enjoyed playing the game and have been very engaged with both the co-op and competitive multiplayer modes. If you like first person shooters and online play, I don't see how you can pass this one up. Battlefield 3 will continue to improve and grow as Back to Karkand, the first DLC pack, is set to release soon and will be accessible to PS3 players one week early

A lot actually. If you asked me which exclusive PlayStation 3 title is the most important, I would tell you it is Uncharted, by an astronomical unit. Uncharted: Drakes Fortune dropped onto the PS3 as Sony's answer to Gears of War. Where Naughty Dog arguably wasn't able to match the standard set in Gears' gunplay, they succeeded in developing an amazing action-adventure universe. Naughty Dog was able to capture those classic adventure genre set pieces, create compelling characters and then weave them into a story with amazing cinematic presentation.

As Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception's release date approaches, the hype has been steadily growing. It's sort of weird but as more information about Uncharted 3 comes out, the less I want to hear about it. I already know Uncharted 3 is going to be amazing and because it is such a story driven game, I am really only interested in the press regarding its multiplayer components. I have spent a good amount of time with Uncharted 3's multiplayer with the open beta and at PAX Prime, it is solid. I really like the addition of the buddy system and the sprint button. The thing I love most about Uncharted's multiplayer is that it practically plays the same as the single player campaign. The gunplay and platforming mechanics translate perfectly into co-operative and competitive online play.

Through its great writing and gameplay, Uncharted has certainly become the flaqship IP for the PlayStation brand. The Uncharted name alone carries enough clout that Sony decided to bring a new chapter of the franchise to the PlayStation Vita, the company's newest portable platform. It has not been announced if the PlayStation Vita's release has been delayed in Europe and North America so that Uncharted: Golden Abyss will be ready as a launch title but it is not a big stretch. Sony seems serious about the PlayStation Vita and an Uncharted game at launch would make a 'day one' purchase hard to resist for a lot of gamers including myself.

To further reinforce my point, IGN.com featured Uncharted: Drakes Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in the top 15 of their Top 25 PS3 Games feature. Uncharted 2 was ranked #1 on that list. Its importance to the PS3 is unquestionable. Uncharted is the jewel in the crown of the PS3 exclusives. Games like Infamous, Resistance and other key PlayStation exclusives are important as well but none of them can match the experience that Uncharted has provided. The critical acclaim and popularity of the series is only matched by the biggest AAA franchises.

Even Hollywood has come knocking and talks are in progress to come up with a suitable screenplay. While the success of Uncharted has been great for Sony and gamers I wonder if it will get to be too much. Initial reports of the screenplay had the Drake family as a band of eccentric thieves with Mark Wahlberg provisionally cast as Drake. Nerds raged and the original screenwriter has been sacked, but it got me thinking. I started wondering if Naughty Dog should wrap up the story in the third chapter, Drake's Deception. I think we all appreciate games that are put together as well as the Uncharted series but there can be too much of a good thing. The last thing I want is my amazing memories of this series tarnished by lackluster sequels that drive it into the ground. Personally I'd like to see Nathan set off into a glorious sunset with Elena and know that the story is finished when I complete Drake's Deception. Golden Abyss on the Vita then would be a prequel and flesh out Nathan Drake's origin story prior to the start of the PS3 trilogy. Am I crazy? Is there such thing as too much Uncharted? Let me know what you think in the comments.

You look a little stressed out. I'm going to prescribe 1 hour of Dead Island every day for the next two weeks. Call me when you get to Act II and then we can play cooperatively online. Can you imagine you doctor telling you this? Well if your doctor knew anything about Dead Island, she just might. Of course I'm joking, sort of...

If you're like me, you saw the trailer and lost your mind. The trailer was genius, but then I started hearing more about the game and I really lost interest quick. Then the game came out and after spending some significant time with it, I am ready to give you the verdict. Dead Island isn't a perfect experience. Far from it. The game is mired with flaws. While you're moving around the world, be prepared for frame rate stutters and stalls. Not the worst thing but it gets better. I came across numerous bugs in the game while I was playing, just stumbling upon them by accident. For instance while in the Resort area I found a pick up truck sitting atop a billboard. Another time a med-pack was floating just above the ground. I've also crashed out a few times and experienced a few nagging issues online.

I'm happy to tell you that it is not as bad as it sounds, Dead Island may not be perfect but it does a lot of things really well. If you took Oblivion, mixed in a little Left for Dead with a pinch of Borderlands and then put it all in a blender, the end result would be something like Dead Island. Underneath the overly cliche and corny story is a pretty hardcore first person rpg. There are four classes to choose from. Each class specializes in a form of combat, which makes up one of the three skill trees that you progress through as you level up your character. The skill trees (Fury, Combat, and Survivor) are pretty deep and can play off eachother well. Points you spend in Survival can still help you while you are fighting the undead, providing you with upgrades like improved stamina. As you've imagined you gain XP to level up by completing quests, which are you usual retrieve and return affair, and killing zombies.

Dead Island's combat mainly revolves around melee weapons although, there is one character that specializes in firearms and I'm not very high on recommending her. Ammo is even more sparse than med-packs in Dead Island and the zombies don't react the same to headshots as the human opponents in my experience. With melee combat everything is predicated on your stamina bar. A depleted stamina bar will impact your mobility, speed, and damage of each attack drastically. Another factor you must consider is weapon durability. As you use your weapons they will degrade over time but they can be upgraded and repaired at workbenches that are scattered throughout the world.

The thing about Dead Island is that even when I was getting frustrated, I was still having fun, and who doesn't like fun? The voice acting is over the top and the story is about as strong as a house of cards but I couldn't put the controller down. I've had a really great time playing Dead Island and recommended it to several of my friends while I was playing it for this review. Despite its obvious flaws and lack of polish the underlying game is solid and a great experience. The damage models, detection and dismemberment in the game engine are really great. Blowing up a 'thug' with a home-made bomb produced laughs that I haven't had while playing video games in a long time. If you need yet another excuse to get the game, just think about how much stress you'll be able to relieve taking it out on the undead. Last but not least, Techland has already announced that the game will be receiving a number of patches to address many of the issues I've brought up in this review.

Did you already pick up Dead Island? If so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments below!

So PAX has come and gone. It was my first PAX and, "My god..." was it memorable. I'm not sure what was better, the cool games on display or the new friends I made. I arrived in Seattle on Thursday to bright sunny skies that lasted the entire weekend (quite rare in Seattle from what I'm told). This was also my first visit to the great state of Washington and I was blown away. Seattle is a great city. While the great weather held up throughout PAX, this morning has been an entirely different story. The horizon is gray and muted, with dark clouds blanketing the once bright blue sky. Even the music in the hotel hallway was melancholy as I hopped onto the elevator for my last trip down to the lobby. Destination: Seattle Tacoma airport. I've been in a little bit of a funk since walking back to my hotel last night. I guess this is the "post-PAX depression" everyone talks about.

If you've never been to PAX, allow me to explain. PAX is like E3 but for the fans, like you and me. You don't have to be in the industry to get in, just buy a pass next year. All the heavy hitters come out and they go hard. Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft, EA, Capcom all had booths. Rage, Skyrim, RE: Operation Raccoon City, Uncharted 3, FIFA 12, Mass Effect 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic and more were on display. While PAX is a game of lines to play these demos, it's well worth the wait. How many times have you sat reading your Game Informer or read previews from Greg Miller and Daemon Hatfield wondering what it was like to actually get your hands on that demo? The fun is not just limited to the main show floor either. I took a peek at several indie games that looked like a lot of fun and at the very least looked interesting and innovative. Games like Snapshot are pushing gameplay design and mechanics in new directions just like Quantum Conundrum.

I spent a lot of time just cruising the show floors. There's so much to see that it can be overwhelming. There are panels to check out on top of the demos to play! Speaking of panels, I stopped to check in on our favorite IGN editors Friday to check out their panel "Don't Hate us Because We're Beautiful." Somehow, and completely unintentional, I managed to be the first one in line for the panel (NERD!). The plan was to get in line and be sort of close to the front and do some writing. Not long after I showed up, so did several others. The writing plan went to hell and I instead ended up chatting with several fans as the line grew steadily. Everyone kept asking if the editors would show up and talk to us before the show. I assured them that the editors would make time to talk. The panel, as expected, was funny as they discussed how they deal with the unending criticism and unwarranted hatred that comes with the territory of being in video game journalism. The panel ended with a kick-ass song performed by Anthony Gallegos as he performed "Thanks for the Clicks."

Most of the fans that showed up to the panel also made it to the meet and greet at Gameworks that same night. The meet and greet was your standard IGN affair (read: Awesome). It had everything needed to make a great night: IGN editors, IGN fans, food, alcohol and games. Some of my favorite memories of this trip are from that night. I talked to Jim Reilly, convinced several people to give Catherine a shot and probably pissed off Craig Harris! I hope he knew I was just joking with him but oh well (<3).

It's so hard to cram everything that happened into this one blog but all the events during the show and after it really kept me away from writing and blogging all of this into more digestable bite-sized blogs (all my fault). Funny I say that considering my neck and back are killing me from lugging the damned laptop throughout the show, the entire day, practically every day... Don't worry, I'm shaking my head for you. The following day (Saturday) was capped by a Daemon Hatfield set at a local bar called Temple Billiards. Daemon killed it and again I met even more amazing people.

The people I've met have been beyond (BEYOND!) amazing and I will do my absolute best to nurture these new connections. So if we met and you like me, don't be affraid to reach out to me on twitter, myIGN or email. I promise to do the same! I literally cannot wait to come back next year for PAX and do it all over again, except this time, even better.

A special shout out to all the new people I met this weekend (in no particular order): Spencer and Denise, Sebastian, Isaac, Jayme, Luke and Christina, Frank in the Uncharted 3 line, John, Sergio, Britt, Beez!, and Levi! I'm sorry if I left anyone out. You're all so amazing and I love you all.

I apologize for not having pictures. I have some, like of my dumb N7 temporary tattoo, and have been trying to upload them so I can add them to the blog but I'm currently experiencing difficulties. I'll add pics as soon as I can. Sorry =(

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a review on a pretty special game, Catherine. Catherine is unlike any game I have played for numerous reasons. The content and subject matter of the game is very mature and thanfully the writing is smart enough to keep it from falling into the gutter. As you've probably guessed, the game deals with mature themes like relationship dynamics and of course, when dealing with adult relationships, there is sex and it is sex that I want to focus on in this piece. If you have not unlocked the True Lover's ending in Catherine, I caution you on reading further.

Sex. It is a tricky subject for video games. Remember when Mass Effect was demonized and basically referred to as 'pornographic material?' That, however, is not the kind of sex I'm interested in talking about and if you have unlocked the "True Lover's ending, you might have an inkling of what I'm on about. When I say want to talk about sex, I mean gender. Gender is a topic that has often been discussed in games. Lately the representation of women in games and the presence of female gamers has been a hot topic, and yet, that's not what I want to talk about either. Did I lose you? Are you scratching your head already? You may or may not be aware that the ideas of male and female are not as concrete as the world would like you to think. There are lots of people that don't quite fit into either. They fall somewhere in the middle. They're commonly referred to as transgendered.

Transgendered people come in all shapes, sizes, races and religions like everyone else but don't feel comfortable in the body they were born with. Commonly referred to in the medical field as gender identity disorder, it can manifest in a variety of ways from crossdressing, to more radical hormone therapies and surgeries where the individual physically changes from male to female and increasingly more common, female to male. As I'm sure you've noticed, the transgendered community isn't very well covered in mainstream media (The only show that comes to mind right now is RuPaul's Drag Strip and the only time I've even seen that is on Talk Soup!). Imagine my surprise then when I learned there was a transgendered character in Catherine! Even more surprisingly, I was introduced to her rather early on... only I didn't know it until much later.

Meet Erika!

Allow me to reintroduce you then, to Erika. Yes, the barmaid from the Stray Sheep. She's cute, funny and has a very sweet personality. It's made clear pretty early on that Erika has been good friends with Vincent and his little crew of misfits for a long time. Johnny, Orlando and Vincent all went to school with Erika. Just listening to the dialogue will tell you that, but if you really pay attention you will notice it tells a tiny bit more. It may not be apparent the first time you play the game, but they talk to her like a guy friend. As the story develops, Toby, the youngest member of Vincent's group, develops a little crush on Erika. Vincent and his friends hang out at the Stray Sheep every night and Erika's endearing personality, unsurprisingly, attracts Toby to her. Much like Toby, I got to know Erika for who she is. I found her charming in the way that she always looked after Vincent and gave him advice. Whenever it was time to go home she made sure to check that Vincent was OK.

Atlus did an exemplary job in writing her character and treating her with respect. She's not a caricature of femininity nor does she look like a guy in drag. She is who she is, and it is this sensitivity and care that I think deserves massive praise. Like most characters and real people, she is not defined by her gender. Nevertheless, Atlus does do a sneaky good job of dropping little hints at the fact that she used to be a man. The dialogue in the game is clever at dropping tiny subtle clues. As Toby gets more serious about his relationship with Erika, he starts to talk to his friends about punching his V-card with her. Vincent, Johnny and Orlando can't seem to understand Toby's attraction to her, since they knew Erika as Eric. Something Toby finds out at the end of the game. He explains to Vincent what they already knew after his 'hot night out.' Not surprisingly, he is a little bummed out about the fact that his new girlfriend used to be a guy but he's not looking to pound her face in (a fear not uncommon to real transsexuals).

To me Erika is one of the most refreshing characters in video games lately. She transcends video games, addressing and confronting social and cultural issues that are still quite sensitive in the world (notably the United States). Characters like Erika and games like Catherine can help open the minds of people and encourage us to be more accepting of others despite our differences. I dream of a world where we all can be who we truly are without fear of violence and hate. Catherine brought me just a tiny bit closer to that dream and for that, I can't thank it enough.